Introduction:

In this series of article we are going to see how to migrate an existing database to the cloud with the different options available like using the traditional approach of migrating by creating scripts, some 3rd party tools and the migrations wizards.

Overview:

Migrating database from the local server to the Azure cloud is something we require in a daily basis to sync up the servers and make it available to all the users and the developers in full phase. We have different options available to do that, where Microsoft provides some real-time inbuilt options, also we have some 3rd party tools available for the migration using some nice and cool wizards.

In this article we are going to see the different options available with some overview on each option, in the later series of articles we will see in-depth on each option on how to migrate to the SQL Azure server. Let us jump-start to see the different options available.

Option 1 - Migrate by generating Script

Using this option is straight forward like creating a schema of the database locally and migrate the database by running the script to the destination SQL Azure server. we can use SQL generate and publish wizard to do this by simply selecting the options and do the publish online.

Also we need to take some steps to carry out this operation since some specific tasks are not available with the SQL Azure online database. Since SQL Azure supports only some subsets of the database options we need to modify the script before we run it on to the server.

Option 2 - Migrating by using Microsoft Sync Framework 2.1

This option is used to do a migration for an On-Premises database to be available online by synchronizing and also do a sync between 2 or more SQL Azure database with in the same servers or to the other servers in different data centers. We need to use the Microsoft Sync Framework 2.1 to use the sync process between the servers. Let us see in detail on this option in our upcoming articles

Option 3 - Migrating by using SQL Azure Migration Wizard

This option is a small Wizard tool built by the Community to migrate between the server and do a complete sync by creating scripts for the objects. This tool was developed and maintained by Codeplex the official code place for Microsoft tools. Let us see in detail on this option in our upcoming articles.

Conclusion:

So in this article we have seen the different options available for doing a migration and a sync of data between the on-premises and the existing database to the new server or to the old server for a sync. We will see in-depth step by step process on how to do these in our upcoming articles.